13th December 2011
__NOINDEX__ =WELLS WAY TRIANGLE RE5DENTS ASSOCIATION= Minutes of Committee Meeting held on 13th December 2011 Attending : Jenny Bentall (Chair), Richard Llewellyn-Davies (general secretary), Astred Niggeloh, Kapie Mzumara, Andrew Osborne, Susie Giles, Mike Morris, Claire Sharpe, ZLT, Emily Woodhouse, Aston Martin, David Frost (Treasurer), Tom Tibbits (Vice Chair), Noel Ene (Housing Officer Southwark Council), Cllr Mark Williams, Andrew Southern. 1. 'Apologies:' Tessa Brown, Jenny Jones, Alice Young, Rachel Goldsmith. 2. Approval of the minutes of the November meeting =Minutes of the meeting on the November were approved. = =We are still waiting for the minutes of the AGM.= 3. Matters arising Wells Way Triangle Resident Association e mail address wwtracamberwell@gmail.com 4. A discussion with the Housing Officer (Noel Ene) Responses to survey responses from council house tenants The most common complaint was about a lack of repairs to council properties. Although scaffolding has been put up outside the flats in rainbow st, nothing seems to be happening. Other complaints concerned noise from nearby neighbours. Noel noted that he had brought notes with him detailing how he could be contacted. The council encourage people to report noise. They can also use mediation where necessary. Mark Williams noted that tenants contracts have clauses pertaining to noise. Mark also noted that £320m was being spent across the borough to make all homes decent. 1-11 Rainbow street are due to get new windows put in. The decision about when is sitting with the council cabinet. The housing scrutiny committee has criticised Morrison (the housing repairs contractor) and vangent (the call centre operator) for charging for multiple call outs for the same job. There was a discussion about whether there was a contractual obligation for these repairs to be done within a certain time. The council has now implemented a “right first time” policy. There should, hopefully, be a full announcement about further changes to the contracts next year. The council are aiming for all renovations to be completed by the end of 2015/16. There were also complaints about scaffolding remaining outside of the council block in Bonsor Street, which has been up since last summer. Mark promised to look into this. The issue of rubbish dumped in the front garden of the Rainbow street flats was also raised. Environmental officers and the Housing officer seem to pass responsibility for this between each other. Mark acknowledged that there was a problem with fly tipping. From next year the police will be stopping vans passing through the area to see if they are likely to fly tip. A question was asked about whether railings could be erected on the wall of the property to prevent fly tipping. Jenny noted that there was a lack of clear storage space for rubbish, which created detritus around the front of the properties by mid week, which encourages further rubbish dumping. No system seems to exist about where bins are kept. Jenny suggested a special meeting with people who live in the block to discuss the issue of fly tipping. Mark suggested that he, Noel and Jenny could undertake a “walkabout”, setting a time and date for tenants to speak to them in the New Year. =''Action: Noel will send suggested dates for this to Mark Williams''= We agreed to put a suggestion to the Gardening Group that they help the tenants to beautify the front gardens of the council block. Action: The committee will approach Tessa about the Gardening group supporting beautification of the gardens. 5. Updates =Southampton Way shop fronts= The money exists to change the shop fronts. Greener, cleaner, safer officers have agreed with all but two of the shops to have similar frontage. =Criminal activity in the shops on Southampton Way= The police have raided two shop on Southampton way but this proved ineffectual. Mark Williams is looking into ways in which the council can frustrate the activities of the owners of the two premises. =Faulty pavements, a comical bus stop and a crossing in the wrong place= Pavements on Southampton way are due to be repaired but we don’t know when. There are many wobbly paving slabs outside Tesco’s and outside Presco’s. The pedestrian crossing near to Tesco’s needs to be installed by the large hump on Southampton Way at end of Coleman road. we are waiting for TFL to move the bus shelter which currently sits about 20m from the bus stop! The crossing and moving the bus shelter so that it is in the same place as the bus stop is the responsibility of TFL. Mark Williams has pursued the GLA rep Val Shawcross about this and will follow up. On the positive front bell bollards have been placed on the corners of Havil street. =Public transport campaign= We have 43 signatures on the online petition for improved public transport. We have added a line about the Cross River tram and additional bus routes. We will keep collecting signatures in the New Year on the paper signatures. It was suggested that cards with our petition web site could be handed out at bus stops first things in the morning. Mark felt that there was more likelihood of getting the 171 bus route diverted. The local Labour party are also lobbying Ken Livingstone to commit to the Cross River Tram. Mark commented that TFL have £9 Billion in reserve and so can make changes if there is sufficient lobbying to encourage them to do so. Petitions are an effective means of lobbying. Evolution Quarter are also lobbying the council over the transport issue. Mark suggested that we should have a big drive early in the New Year to get commitments to the CRT and improved transport locally into mayoral manifestos before purdah begins on the 20th March. Action: we should ensure that the transport petition is available from the January community meeting and then have a door knocking campaign to follow this up. =Burgess Park= Two thirds of Burgess Park remains closed. Unfortunately the contractors have found two enormous diesel storage tanks. They are off Surrey Canal Road. They are 8m x 16m in size and will cost £1.1. million to remove and add another three months onto the project. This money will come out of the reserves, rather than pulling back on the scope of the project. Cllr Richard Livingstone approved the use of reserves to remove the tanks. Action: RLLD to e mail richard.livingstone@southwark.gov.uk to thank him for this decision and express our hope that the project will be completed to the new deadline. =''CPZ''= The council have undertaken the consultation. The latest consultation has received 129 consultation responses. The different options based on the consultations are being considered. Three options will be presented to the cabinet. Proceed, do not proceed, modify the proposals. Residents that responded to the round two consultation will be notified of the results by post, probably in January. =6. Funding= Mark Williams has put in a complaint to the Director of Housing about the fact that our TRA grants for 2010 and 2011 have still not come through. We discussed an application for cleaner, greener, safer money from the 2012/13 budget for trees and planters on the corner of Wells Way outside the old Bricklayers Arms. Some new revenue grants are to be available from April. Community groups, charities and anyone else will be able to apply for ongoing funding for projects. These will be annual amounts of money for funding services. The money can be used for anything from tree maintenance to lollipop ladies. Action: We will apply for greener, cleaner, safer funding for tree planting and planters. Jenny, Andrew and Claire will meet next Tuesday. =7. Clean up campaign= Tom updated the group on the clean up campaign. The aim of this is to encourage people to clean up dog mess. Tom is contacting artists from all over London to assist with the campaign. We discussed the possibility of ornamental iron tree bases could be installed to protect trees from dogs. We noted that letter writing and e mailing the council has initiated a response from them in terms of improved street cleaning. 8. New Years party Susie, Emily, Ziggy, Andrew and Claire will form the planning committee and will meet on Tuesday the 10th Jan. they will discuss the petition on this day as well. The party itself will be held on the 17th January. Action: A paper communication will have to be circulated before the 11th correcting the date for the New Year event. =9. Dates for future meetings= Other meeting dates will be *14th February *13th March (community meeting) *10th April *8th May *The community summer (jubilee) party will be held in June – the date TBA. =10. AOB= The issue of the “dying high street” and the costs of parking in Camberwell was raised. Mark responded that the parking near Camberwell Green was on private land. Jenny suggested that the March community meeting could focus on green issues. We could get Donnachadh McCarthy to speak as well as someone from the Bonnington Park community café to speak at the meeting. Claire mentioned the possibility of a Chelsea Fringe festival, as an alternative to the Chelsea Flower show. Mark mentioned that the Carib Youth Centre is looking for volunteers to teach the Carib Youth, mostly from the Gleeb estate, to garden and grow food. Anyone interested should contact Elain Joseph via Mark Williams’ e mail mark.williams@southwark.gov.uk . Claire expressed an interest. The St Georges Pop-in charity are looking for volunteers to run their tea stall for (say) two hours per month. The Pop-in is a charity for people with Learning difficulties. 'Action: The pop-in search for volunteers to be entered into the newsletter with Tom as the person to contact.'